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Bon Echo Alpha 2 is a developer preview release of our next generation Firefox browser and it is being made available for testing purposes only.
Bon Echo Alpha 2 is intended for web application developers and our
testing community. Current users of Mozilla Firefox 1.x should not use
Bon Echo Alpha 2.

Downloading and Installing

System Requirements

Mozilla.org provides Bon Echo for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X in a
variety of languages. To get the latest version of Bon Echo, browse the
FTP site.
For builds for other systems and languages not provided by Mozilla.org, see
the Contributed Builds section at the end of this document.

Windows

Mac OS X

Double click the Bon Echo Alpha 2.dmg Disk Image to uncompress and mount it.
Your browser may have already done this for you. Double click the BonEcho
Disk Image to open it in Finder and drag the Bon Echo application onto your
hard disk. Do not double click the icon in the disk image!
Be sure to drag the Bon Echo application out of the disk image and onto your
Hard Disk before running it. Drag the icon to your Dock if you want it to
appear there.

Linux/GTK2

Extract the tarball and run ./firefox:

tar -xzvf bonecho-alpha2.tar.gz
cd firefox
./firefox

Other Platforms

Extract the compressed archive and run firefox

Uninstalling Bon Echo Alpha 2

To uninstall Bon Echo Alpha 2, follow these instructions:

Windows

From the Start menu, choose Control Panel. When the
Control Panel appears, double click Add/Remove Programs. Find
"Bon Echo (2.0a2)" in the list and click Remove to uninstall.

Mac OS X

Drag the BonEcho application to the Trash.

Others

Remove the firefox folder.

These instructions leave your profile in place in case you install Firefox
again in the future. If you wish to remove your profile folder, remove
the location described below in the "Profile Folder" section.
Note that by doing this you are destroying all of your downloaded Extensions and Themes, Bookmarks, saved passwords,
settings and other information and should you decide to use Firefox again you
will be starting with a clean profile.

Other Information

Profile Folder

Bon Echo stores your user data in one of the following locations:

Windows 2000, XP

Documents and Settings\<UserName>\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox

Windows NT

WINNT\Profiles\<UserName>\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox

Windows 98, ME

Windows\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox

Mac OS X

~/Library/Application Support/Firefox

Linux and Unix systems

~/.mozilla/firefox

Extensions and Themes

Extensions
installed under Firefox 1.5 may be incompatible and/or require updates
to work with Bon Echo Alpha 2. Please report any issues to the
maintainer of the extension. When you install Bon Echo Alpha 2 all of
your Extensions and Themes may be disabled until Bon Echo Alpha 2
determines that either a) they are compatible with the Bon Echo Alpha 2
release or b) there are newer versions available that are compatible.

History and Bookmarks

The new history and bookmark system used in Bon Echo Alpha 1 has been removed in Bon Echo Alpha 2. You will need to follow these steps if you are migrating a profile from Bon Echo Alpha 1.

This
list covers some of the known problems with Bon Echo Alpha 2. Please
read this before reporting any new bugs, and watch it regularly (we'll
update it as new bugs are found in the release).

All Systems

History and Bookmarks:

The new history and bookmark system used in Bon Echo Alpha 1 has been removed in Bon Echo Alpha 2. You will need to follow these steps if you are migrating a profile from Bon Echo Alpha 1.

Extensions:

When moving to Bon Echo Alpha 2 from an earlier version of Firefox,
some of your Extensions and Themes may be disabled. This is not an
issue, but it may appear to be one (hence its listing here). For
rationale, see "Extension and Themes" above.

Inline Spell Check:

There is a known bug that causes lines that contain non-standard ASCII characters and misspelled words to disappear.

Windows

Mac OS X

If you browse to a site that issues a SSL certificate which doesn't match the domain name of the site, and then choose to view that certificate, a blank dialog will be presented and hang the browser. A workaround is to change security.warn_entering_secure to be false in about:config or to not view the certificate. More details in bug 337646.

Linux and Unix systems

Web Page Rendering

Poorly designed or incompatible Extensions can cause problems with your
browser, including making it crash, slowing down page display, etc. If
you encounter strange problems relating to parts of the browser no
longer working, the browser not starting, windows with strange or
distorted appearance, degraded performance, etc, you may be suffering
from Extension or Theme trouble. Restart the browser in Safe Mode. On
Windows, start using the "Safe Mode" shortcut created in your Start
menu or by running firefox.exe -safe-mode. On Linux,
start with ./firefox -safe-mode and on Mac OS X, run:

cd /Applications/BonEcho.app/Contents/MacOS/
./firefox-bin -safe-mode

When started in Safe Mode all extensions are disabled and the Default
theme is used. Disable the Extension/Theme that is causing trouble and
then start normally.

If you uninstall an extension that
is installed with your user profile (i.e. you installed it from a web
page) and then wish to install it for all user profiles using the
-install-global-extension command line flag, you must restart the
browser once to cleanse the profile extensions datasource of traces of
that extension before installing with the switch. If you do not do this
you may end up with a jammed entry in the Extensions list and will be
unable to install the extension globally.

If you encounter
strange problems relating to bookmarks, downloads, window placement,
toolbars, history, or other settings, it is recommended that you try
creating a new profile and attempting to reproduce the problem before
filing bugs. Create a new profile by running Firefox with the -P
command line argument, choose the "Manage Profiles" button and then
choose "Create Profile...". Migrate your settings files (Bookmarks,
Saved Passwords, etc) over one by one, checking each time to see if the
problems resurface. If you do find a particular profile data file is
causing a problem, file a bug and attach the file.

Lots of people. See Help->About Mozilla Bon Echo, Credits for a list of some of the people who have contributed to Bon Echo.

Where's the Bon Echo Alpha 2 source code?

A tarball of the Bon Echo source code is available for
download. The latest development
code can be obtained by cvs.
Firefox-specific source is in "mozilla/browser", "mozilla/toolkit",
and "mozilla/chrome". Please follow the build instructions.

Where is the mail client?

Bon Echo works with whatever mail client is the default on your system.
However, we recommend Mozilla Thunderbird, our
next generation email client and the perfect complement to Firefox.